Good morning everyone, many thanks to @irelandbattles for lending me the digital keys to the Irish At War account!
Over the next fortnight I’ll be sharing with you brief histories of the Irish infantry…
(“The Irish Regiments of the British Army, 1897”, NAM 1973-11-137-1)
2/…regiments which formed part of the British Army in 1911. In doing so we will assess the Census Returns for battalions that were serving overseas at the time of the Census was undertaken.
(Cover Cover for 1/Royal Irish Regiment, 1911)
3/ This was the first census in which units of the British Army overseas were enumerated. A range of demographic data was recorded, including a soldier’s name, age, rank, marital status, unit or arm of service, their occupation and place of birth.
4/ Men of all ranks completed the census, as did the wives and children of soldiers living in barracks at the time the census was completed. Collated together, these documents provide us a brief snapshot of the officers, men and dependants of these units in the Edwardian era…
5/…less than three years ahead of the outbreak of the First World War.
However, we will not just be looking at the regiments themselves and there will threads on the recruitment of Irish…
(5/Connaught Rangers moving up to the front, Gallipoli, August 1915, NAM 1963-12-307-41)
6/…born soldiers elsewhere in the British Army and insight into to those who ‘followed the drum’; the women, children and dependents who followed the Army overseas.
(Wedding photo of Staff Sergeant Farrier William Lewis Old, 21st Lancers, c.1905, NAM 1972-05-24-9)
7/ Each regiment will be covered in order of precedence (seniority) beginning with the Irish Guards tomorrow and ending a week on Friday with the Royal Munster Fusiliers.
(Image left, NAM 1983-11-101-1; Image right, NAM 1983-05-29-1)
8/ For clarity, I will end their individual histories in 1911, meaning that significant events such as the First World War and the disbandment of six Irish regiments in 1922 will not be covered in these threads.
However, excellent recent posts from…
(NAM 1959-05-112-59)
9/…@stecallaghan01 & @kayneagle on this channel have previously covered off these events in detail and I’d encourage you to give these a read if you haven’t had the opportunity to already.
10/ Some of you may have already come across my #BattalionCensus threads on my personal channel @MAJ_1868_1918; for those of you who haven’t, an explainer of my methodology and use of sources can be found via the link below:
11/ In line with my methodology, each battalion (with the exception of the Irish Guards; more on this tomorrow) was based overseas at the time the Census was conducted. Six were serving in India, one in Burma and one in North China (although it would soon move to India).
12/ A quick note on geography. In my charts/tables I use the names of Irish counties as outlined in the 2001 Local Government Act. For this reason, soldiers recorded as being born in ‘King’s County’ or ‘Queen’s County’ on the census…
(Image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counties_…)
13/…are listed as being born in Counties Offaly & Laois respectively. Regimental titles are reflective of the time and regimental titles such as the Connaught Rangers have not been modernised (Connaught being the anglicisation of Connacht, the province from which the regiment...
Fini/...was recruited).
I hope you will enjoy the next couple of weeks of threads. Tomorrow we will begin with a brief introduction to Irish service in the British Army, followed by the first of our regiments; the Irish Guards.
(NAM 1975-01-31-2)
PS/ Apologies, the image in tweet '11' is actually the wrong map - please find the correct image below 👇
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